Theophilus Cibber - The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753)

T >> Theophilus Cibber >> The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753)

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Thus died lord Rochester, an amazing instance of the goodness of God,
who permitted him to enjoy time, and inclined his heart to penitence.
As by his life he was suffered to set an example of the most abandoned
dissoluteness to the world; so by his death, he was a lively
demonstration of the fruitlessness of vicious courses, and may be
proposed as an example to all those who are captivated with the charms
of guilty pleasure.

Let all his failings now sleep with him in the grave, and let us only
think of his closing moments, his penitence, and reformation. Had he
been permitted to have recovered his illness, it is reasonable to
presume he would have been as lively an example of virtue as he had
ever been of vice, and have born his testimony in favour of religion.

He left behind him a son named Charles, who dying on the 12th of
November, was buried by his father on the 7th of December following:
he also left behind him three daughters. The male line ceasing,
Charles II. conferred the title of earl of Rochester on Lawrence
viscount Killingworth, a younger son of Edward earl of Clarendon.

We might now enumerate his lordship's writings, of which we have
already given some character; but unhappily for the world they are too
generally diffused, and we think ourselves under no obligations to
particularize those works which have been so fruitful of mischief to
society, by promoting a general corruption of morals; and which he
himself in his last moments wished he could recal, or rather that he
never had composed.

Footnotes:
1. See the Life of Sheffield Duke of Buckingham.
2. The Duchess of Portsmouth.

* * * * *

GEORGE VILLIERS, Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

Son and heir of George, duke, marquis, and earl of Buckingham,
murdered by Felton in the year 1628. This nobleman was born at
Wallingford-House in the parish of St. Martin's in the Fields on the
30th of January 1627, and baptized there on the 14th of February
following, by Dr. Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells, afterwards
archbishop of Canterbury.

Before we proceed to give any particulars of our noble author's life,
we must entreat the reader's indulgence to take a short view of the
life of his grace's father, in which, some circumstances extremely
curious will appear; and we are the more emboldened to venture upon
this freedom, as some who have written this life before us, have taken
the same liberty, by which the reader is no loser; for the first duke
of Buckingham was a man whose prosperity was so instantaneous, his
honours so great, his life so dissipated, and his death so remarkable,
that as no minister ever enjoyed so much power, so no man ever drew
the attention of the world more upon him. No sooner had he returned
from his travels, and made his first appearance at court, than he
became a favourite with King James, who, (says Clarendon) 'of all wise
men he ever knew, was most delighted and taken with handsome persons
and fine cloaths.'

He had begun to be weary of his favourite the earl of Somerset, who
was the only one who kept that post so long, without any public
reproach from the people, till at last he was convicted of the horrid
conspiracy against the life of Sir Thomas Overbury, and condemned as a
murderer. While these things were in agitation, Villiers appeared at
court; he was according to all accounts, the gayest and handsomest man
in his time, of an open generous temper, of an unreserved affability,
and the most engaging politeness.

In a few days he was made cup-bearer to the King, by which he was of
course to be much in his presence, and so admitted to that
conversation with which that prince always abounded at his meals. He
had not acted five weeks on this stage, to use the noble historian's
expression, till he mounted higher, being knighted, and made gentleman
of the bed-chamber, and knight of the most noble order of the garter,
and in a short time a baron, a viscount, an earl, a marquis, and lord
high-admiral of England, lord warden of the cinque ports, master of
the horse, and entirely disposed all the favours of the King, acting
as absolutely in conferring honours and distinctions, as if he himself
had wore the diadem.

We find him soon after making war or peace, according to humour,
resentment, or favour. He carried the prince of Wales into Spain to
see the Infanta, who was proposed to him as a wife; and it plainly
enough appears, that he was privy to one intrigue of prince Charles,
and which was perhaps the only one, which that prince, whom all
historians, whether friends or enemies to his cause; have agreed to
celebrate for chastity, and the temperate virtues. There is an
original letter of prince Charles to the duke, which was published by
Mr. Thomas Hearne, and is said once to have belonged to archbishop
Sancroft. As it is a sort of curiosity we shall here insert it,

"STENNY,

"I have nothing now to write to you, but to give you thankes both for
the good councell ye gave me, and for the event of it. The King gave
mee a good sharpe potion, but you took away the working of it by the
well relished comfites ye sent after it. I have met with the partie,
that must not be named, once alreddie, and the culler of wryting this
letter shall make mee meet with her on saturday, although it is
written the day being thursday. So assuring you that the bus'ness goes
safely onn, I rest

"Your constant friend
"CHARLES.

"I hope you will not shew the King this letter, but put it in the safe
custody of mister Vulcan."

It was the good fortune of this nobleman to have an equal interest
with the son as with the father; and when prince Charles ascended the
throne, his power was equally extensive, and as before gave such
offence to the House of Commons and the people, that he was voted an
enemy to the realm, and his Majesty was frequently addressed to remove
him from his councils. Tho' Charles I. had certainly more virtues, and
was of a more military turn than his father, yet in the circumstance
of doating upon favourites, he was equally weak. His misfortune was,
that he never sufficiently trusted his own judgment, which was often
better than that of his servants; and from this diffidence he was
tenacious of a minister of whose abilities he had a high opinion, and
in whose fidelity he put confidence.

The duke at last became so obnoxious, that it entered into the head of
an enthusiast, tho' otherwise an honest man, one lieutenant Felton,
that to assassinate this court favourite, this enemy of the realm,
would be doing a grateful thing to his country by ridding it of one
whose measures in his opinion, were likely soon to destroy it.--

The fate of the duke was now approaching, and it is by far the most
interesting circumstance in his life.

We shall insert, in the words of the noble historian, the particular
account of it.

'John Felton, an obscure man in his own person, who had been bred a
soldier, and lately a lieutenant of foot, whose captain had been
killed on the retreat at the Isle of Ree, upon which he conceived that
the company of right ought to have been conferred upon him; and it
being refused him by the duke of Buckingham, general of the army, had
given up his commission and withdrawn himself from the army. He was of
a melancholic nature, and had little conversation with any body, yet
of a gentleman's family in Suffolk, of a good fortune, and reputation.
From the time that he had quitted the army he resided at London; when
the House of Commons, transported with passion and prejudice against
the duke, had accused him to the House of Peers for several
misdemeanors and miscarriages, and in some declarations had stiled him
the cause of all the evils the kingdom suffered, and an enemy to the
public.

'Some transcripts of such expressions, and some general invectives he
met with amongst the people, to whom this great man was not grateful,
wrought so far upon this melancholic gentleman, that he began to
believe he should do God good service if he killed the duke. He chose
no other instrument to do it than an ordinary knife, which he bought
of a common cutler for a shilling, and thus provided, he repaired to
Portsmouth, where he arrived the eve of St. Bartholomew. The duke was
then there, in order to prepare and make ready the fleet and the army,
with which he resolved in a few days to transport himself to the
relief of Rochelle, which was then besieged by cardinal Richelieu, and
for the relief whereof the duke was the more obliged, by reason that
at his being at the Isle of Ree, he had received great supplies of
victuals, and some companies of their garrison from the town, the want
of both which they were at this time very sensible of, and grieved at.

'This morning of St. Bartholomew, the duke had received letters, in
which he was advertised, that Rochelle had relieved itself; upon which
he directed that his breakfast might be speedily made ready, and he
would make haste to acquaint the King with the good news, the court
being then at Southwick, about five miles from Portsmouth. The chamber
in which he was dressing himself was full of company, and of officers
in the fleet and army. There was Monsieur de Soubize, brother to the
duke de Rohan, and other French gentlemen, who were very sollicitous
for the embarkation of the army, and for the departure of the fleet
for the relief of Rochelle; and they were at that time in much trouble
and and perplexity, out of apprehension that the news the duke had
received that morning might slacken the preparations of the voyage,
which their impatience and interest, persuaded them was not advanced
with expedition; and so they held much discourse with the duke of the
impossibility that his intelligence could be true, and that it was
contrived by the artifice and dexterity of their enemies, in order to
abate the warmth and zeal that was used for their relief, the arrival
of which relief, those enemies had much reason to apprehend; and a
longer delay in sending it, would ease them of that terrible
apprehension; their forts and works towards the sea, and in the
harbour being almost finished.

'This discourse, according to the natural custom of that nation, and
by the usual dialect of that language, was held with such passion and
vehemence, that the standers-by who understood not French, did believe
they were angry, and that they used the duke rudely. He being ready,
and informed that his breakfast was ready, drew towards the door,
where the hangings were held up; and in that very passage turning
himself to speak with Sir Thomas Fryer, a colonel of the army, who was
then speaking near his ear, he was on a sudden struck over his
shoulder upon the breast with a knife; upon which, without using any
other words, than that the villain has killed me, and in the same
moment pulling out the knife himself, he fell down dead, the knife
having pierced his heart. No man had ever seen the blow, or the man
who gave it; but in the confusion they were in, every man made his own
conjecture, and declared it as a thing known, most agreeing, that it
was done by the French, from the angry discourse they thought they had
heard from them, and it was a kind of miracle, that they were not all
killed that instant: The sober sort that preserved them from it,
having the same opinion of their guilt, and only reserving them for a
more judicial examination, and proceeding.

'In the crowd near the door, there was found upon the ground a hat, in
the inside whereof, there was sewed upon the crown a paper, in which
were writ four or five lines of that declaration made by the House of
Commons, in which they had stiled the duke an enemy to the kingdom;
and under it a short ejaculation towards a prayer. It was easily
enough concluded, that the hat belonged to the person who had
committed the murder, but the difficulty remained still as great, who
that person should be; for the writing discovered nothing of the name;
and whosoever it was, it was very natural to believe, that he was gone
far enough not to be found without a hat. In this hurry, one running
one way, another another way, a man was seen walking before the door
very composedly without a hat; whereupon one crying out, here's the
fellow that killed the duke, upon which others run thither, every body
asking which was he; to which the man without the hat very composedly
answered, I am he. Thereupon some of those who were most furious
suddenly run upon the man with their drawn swords to kill him; but
others, who were at least equally concerned in the loss and in the
sense of it, defended him; himself with open arms very calmly and
chearfully exposing himself to the fury and swords of the most
enraged, as being very willing to fall a sacrifice to their sudden
anger, rather than be kept for deliberate justice, which he knew must
be executed upon him.

'He was now enough known, and easily discovered to be that Felton,
whom we mentioned before, who had been a lieutenant in the army; he
was quickly carried into a private room by the persons of the best
condition, some whereof were in authority, who first thought fit, so
far to dissemble, as to mention the duke only grievously wounded, but
not without hopes of recovery. Upon which Felton smiled, and said, he
knew well enough he had given him a blow that had determined all their
hopes. Being then asked at whose instigation he had performed that
horrid, wretched act, he answered them with a wonderful assurance,
That they should not trouble themselves in that enquiry; that no man
living had credit or power enough with him to have engaged or disposed
him, to such an action, that he had never entrusted his purpose or
resolution to any man; that it proceeded from himself, and the impulse
of his own conscience, and that the motives thereunto will appear if
his hat were found. He spoke very frankly of what he had done, and
bore the reproaches of them that spoke to him, with the temper of a
man who thought he had not done amiss. But after he had been in prison
some time, where he was treated without any rigour, and with humanity
enough; and before and at his tryal, which was about four months
after, at the King's Bench, he behaved himself with great modesty, and
wonderful repentance; being as he said convinced in his conscience
that he had done wickedly, and asked pardon of the King and Duchess,
and all the Duke's servants, whom he acknowledged he had offended, and
very earnestly besought the judges that he might have his hand struck
off, with which he had performed that impious act before he should be
put to death.'

This is the account lord Clarendon gives in the first volume of his
history, of the fall of this great favourite, which serves to throw a
melancholy veil over the splendor of his life, and demonstrates the
extreme vanity of exterior pomp, and the danger those are exposed to
who move on the precipice of power. It serve[s] to shew that of all
kind of cruelty, that which is the child of enthusiasm is the word, as
it is founded upon something that has the appearance of principles;
and as it is more stedfast, so does it diffuse more mischief than that
cruelty which flows from the agitations of passion: Felton blindly
imagined he did God service by assassination, and the same unnatural
zeal would perhaps have prompted him to the murder of a thousand more,
who in his opinion were enemies to their country.

The above-mentioned historian remarks, that there were several
prophecies and predictions scattered about, concerning the duke's
death; and then proceeds to the relation of the most astonishing story
we have ever met with.

As this anecdote is countenanced by so great a name, I need make no
apology for inserting it, it has all the evidence the nature of the
thing can admit of, and is curious in itself.

'There was an officer in the King's wardrobe in Windsor-Castle of a
good reputation for honesty and discretion, and then about the age of
fifty years, or more. This man had been bred in his youth in a school
in the parish where Sir George Villiers the father of the Duke lived,
and had been much cherished and obliged in that season of his age, by
the said Sir George, whom afterwards he never saw. About six months
before the miserable end of the duke of Buckingham, about midnight,
this man, being in his bed at Windsor, where his office was, and in
very good health, there appeared to him, on the side of his bed, a man
of very venerable aspect, who fixing his eyes upon him, asked him, if
he knew him; the poor man half dead with fear, and apprehension, being
asked the second time, whether he remembered him, and having in that
time called to his memory, the presence of Sir George Villiers, and
the very cloaths he used to wear, in which at that time he used to be
habited; he answered him, That he thought him to be that person; he
replied, that he was in the right, that he was the same, and that he
expected a service from him; which was, that he should go from him to
his son the duke of Buckingham, and tell him, if he did not somewhat
to ingratiate himself to the people, or at least, to abate the extreme
malice they had against him, he would be suffered to live but a short
time, and after this discourse he disappeared, and the poor man, if he
had been at all waking, slept very well till the morning, when he
believed all this to be a dream, and considered it no otherwise.

'Next night, or shortly after, the same person appeared to him again
in the same place, and about the same time of the night, with an
aspect a little more severe than before; and asking him whether he had
done as he required him? and perceiving he had not, he gave him very
severe reprehensions, and told him, he expected more compliance from
him; and that if he did not perform his commands, he should enjoy no
peace of mind, but should be always pursued by him: Upon which he
promised to obey him.

'But the next morning waking exceedingly perplexed with the lively
representation of all that had passed, he considered that he was a
person at such a distance from the duke, that he knew not how to find
any admittance into his presence, much less any hope to be believed in
what he should say, so with great trouble and unquietness he spent
some time in thinking what he should do. The poor man had by this time
recovered the courage to tell him, That in truth he had deferred the
execution of his commands, upon considering how difficult a thing it
would be for him to get access to the duke, having acquaintance with
no person about him; and if he could obtain admission to him, he would
never be able to persuade him that he was sent in such a manner, but
he should at best be thought to be mad, or to be set on and employed
by his own or the malice of other men to abuse the duke, and so he
should be sure to be undone. The person replied, as he had done
before, that he should never find rest, till he should perform what he
required, and therefore he were better to dispatch it; that the access
to his son was known to be very easy; and that few men waited long for
him, and for the gaining him credit, he would tell him two or three
particulars, which he charged him never to mention to any person
living, but to the duke himself; and he should no sooner hear them,
but he would believe all the rest he should say; and so repeating his
threats he left him.

'In the morning the poor man more confirmed by the last appearance,
made his journey to London, where the court then was. He was very well
known to Sir Ralph Freeman, one of the masters of the requests, who
had married a lady that was nearly allied to the duke, and was himself
well received by him. To him this man went; and tho' he did not
acquaint him with all the particulars, he said enough to him to let
him see there was somewhat extraordinary in it, and the knowledge he
had of the sobriety and discretion of the man, made the more
impression on him. He desired that by his means he might be brought to
the duke, to such a place, and in such a manner as should be thought
fit; affirming, that he had much to say to him; and of such a nature
as would require much privacy, and some time and patience in the
hearing. Sir Ralph promised he would speak first to the duke of him,
and then he should understand his pleasure, and accordingly on the
first opportunity he did inform him of the reputation and honesty of
the man, and then what he desired, and all he knew of the matter. The
duke according to his usual openness and condescension told him, that
he was the next day, early, to hunt with the King; that his horses
should attend him to Lambeth Bridge, where he would land by five
o'Clock in the morning, and if the man attended him there at that
hour, he would walk and speak with him as long as should be necessary.
Sir Ralph carried the man with him next morning, and presented him to
the duke at his landing, who received him courteously, and walked
aside in conference near an hour, none but his own servants being at
that hour near the place, and they and Sir Ralph at such a distance,
that they could not hear a word, though the duke sometimes spoke, and
with great commotion, which Sir Ralph the more easily perceived,
because he kept his eyes always fixed upon the duke; having procured
the conference, upon somewhat he knew, there was of extraordinary; and
the man told him in his return over the water, that when he mentioned
those particulars, which were to gain him credit, the substance
whereof he said he durst not impart to him, the duke's colour changed,
and he swore he could come by that knowledge only by the devil, for
that those particulars were known only to himself, and to one person
more, who, he was sure, would never speak of it.

'The duke pursued his purpose of hunting, but was observed to ride all
the morning with great pensiveness, and in deep thoughts, without any
delight in the exercise he was upon, and before the morning was spent,
left the field, and alighted at his mother's lodgings at Whitehall,
with whom he was shut up for the space of two or three hours, the
noise of their discourse frequently reaching the ears of those who
attended in the next rooms and when the duke left her, his countenance
appeared full of trouble, with a mixture of anger: a countenance that
was never before observed in him in any conversation with her, towards
whom he had a profound reverence, and the countess herself was, at the
duke's leaving her, found overwhelmed in tears, and in the highest
agony imaginable; whatever there was of all this, it is a notorious
truth, that when the news of the duke's murder (which happened within
a few months) was brought to his mother, she seemed not in the least
degree surprized, but received it as if she had foreseen it, nor did
afterwards express such a degree of sorrow, as was expected from such
a mother, for the loss of such a son.'

This is the representation which lord Clarendon gives of this
extraordinary circumstance, upon which I shall not presume to make any
comment; but if ever departed spirits were permitted to interest
themselves with human affairs, and as Shakespear expresses it, revisit
the glimpses of the moon, it seems to have been upon this occasion: at
least there seems to be such rational evidence of it, as no man,
however fortified against superstition, can well resist.

But let us now enter upon the life of the son of this great man; who,
if he was inferior to his father as a statesman, was superior in wit,
and wanted only application to have made a very great figure, even in
the senate, but his love of pleasure was immoderate, which embarrassed
him in the pursuit of any thing solid or praise-worthy.

He was an infant when his father's murder was perpetrated, and
received his early education from several domestic tutors, and was
afterwards sent to the university of Cambridge: when he had finished
his course there, he travelled with his brother lord Francis, under
the care of William Aylesbury, esquire. Upon his return, which was
after the breaking out of the civil wars, he was conducted to Oxford,
and presented to his Majesty, then there, and entered into Christ
Church. Upon the decline of the King's cause, the young duke of
Buckingham attended Prince Charles into Scotland, and was present in
the year 1651 at the battle of Worcester, where he escaped beyond sea,
and was soon after made knight of the garter. He came afterwards
privately into England, and, November 19, 1657, married Mary, the
daughter and heir of Thomas lord Fairfax, by whose interest he
recovered all or most of his estate, which he had lost before. After
the restoration, at which time he is said to have possessed an estate
of 20,000 l. per annum, he was made one of the lords of the King's
bed-chamber, and of the privy council, lord lieutenant of Yorkshire,
and, at last, master of the horse.

In the year 1666, being discovered to have maintained secret
correspondence by letters, and other transactions, tending to raise
mutinies among some of his Majesty's forces, and stir up sedition
among his people, and to have carried on other traiterous designs and
practices, he absconded, upon which a proclamation was issued the same
year for apprehending him. Mr. Thomas Carte, in his Life of the Duke
of Ormond[1], tells us, 'that the duke's being denied the post of
president of the North, was probably the reason of his disaffection to
the King; and, that just before the recess of the Parliament, one Dr.
John Heydon was taken up for treasonable practices, in sowing a
sedition in the navy, and engaging persons in a conspiracy to seize
the Tower. The man was a pretender to great skill in astrology, but
had lost much of his reputation, by prognosticating the hanging of
Oliver to his son Richard Cromwel and Thurloe, who came to him in
disguise, for the calculation of nativities, being dressed like
distressed cavaliers. He was for that put into prison, and continued
in confinement sixteen months, whilst Cromwel outlived the prediction
four years. This insignificant fellow was mighty great with the duke
of Buckingham, who, notwithstanding the vanity of the art, and the
notorious ignorance of the professor of it, made him cast not only his
own, but the King's nativity; a matter of dangerous curiosity, and
condemned by a statute which could only be said to be antiquated,
because it had not for a long time been put in execution. This fellow
he had likewise employed, among others, to excite the seamen to
mutiny, as he had given money to other rogues to put on jackets to
personate seamen, and to go about the country begging in that garb,
and exclaiming for want of pay, while the people oppressed with taxes,
were cheated of their money by the great officers of the crown. Heydon
pretended to have been in all the duke's secrets, for near four years
past, and that he had been all that time designing against the King
and his government, that his grace thought the present reason
favourable for the execution of his design, and had his agents at work
in the navy and in the kingdom, to ripen the general discontents of
the people, and dispose them to action, that he had been importuned by
him to head the first party he could get together, and engage in an
insurrection, the duke declaring his readiness to appear and join in
the undertaking, as soon as the affair was begun. Some to whom Heydon
unbosomed himself, and had been employed by him to carry letters to
the duke of Buckingham, discovered the design. Heydon was taken up,
and a serjeant at arms sent with a warrant by his Majesty's express
order to take up the duke, who, having defended his house by force,
for some time at least, found means to escape. The King knew
Buckingham to be capable of the blackest designs, and was highly
incensed at him for his conduct last sessions, and insinuating that
spirit into the Commons, which had been so much to the detriment of
the public service. He could not forbear expressing himself with more
bitterness against the duke, than was ever dropped from him upon any
other occasion. When he was sollicited in his behalf, he frankly said,
that he had been the cause of continuing the war, for the Dutch would
have made a very low submission, had the Parliament continued their
first vigorous vote of supplying him, but the duke's cabals had
lessened his interest both abroad and at home, with regard to the
support of the war. In consequence of this resentment, the King put
him out of the privy council, bedchamber, and lieutenancy of York,
ordering him likewise to be struck out of all commissions. His grace
absconding, a proclamation was issued out, requiring his appearance,
and surrender of himself by a certain day.'

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